MSFT: Win 8 PC Sales In Line, Says Pac Crest; Inventory Build Ahead

By Tiernan Ray

Pacific Crest Microsoft (MSFT) analyst Brendan Barnicle today reiterates a Sector Perform rating on the stock, writing that his “checks” of 16 retailers in the U.S., Canada and Germany this past weekend revealed that sales of new PCs running the company’s Windows 8 operating system, released three weeks ago, are mostly meeting sales expectations, with 75% reporting “in line” sales and 20% saying sales were above expectations. 6% said sales were missing expectations.

Those numbers are somewhat lower than a similar survey in 2009, three weeks after the introduction of Windows 7, reports Barnicle. At that time, 52% of retailers surveyed said Windows 7 was selling about as expected, while 48% had said at the time it was doing better than expected. Barnicle notes the same survey at the time found no retailers saying Win 7 missed expectations.

However, Barnicle notes inventory of PCs is set to rise, without saying whether that will be a good thing or a bad thing:

45% of retailers reported excess levels of inventory this week, which was unchanged from last week. However, many were due to receive larger PC shipments within the next few days ahead of Black Friday and the holidays. The majority of retailers expect to be carrying higher-than- typical inventory levels over the next week.

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There are 4 comments

NOVEMBER 19, 2012 6:17 P.M.

techy46 wrote:

PC's always sell with the operating system install by the manufacturer. Windows 8 will be no different except that any PC with a touch screen will gretly benefit from Windows 8. All the aniti-MS and W8 FUD is overblown. W* will sell 300-400m copies a year less whatever enterprises replace with their enterprsie licensing privileges.

NOVEMBER 19, 2012 6:38 P.M.

Bert Younger wrote:

Yeah, Windows 8 is a great success that's why Sinofsky is not around to bask in the glory. Meet the next Microsoft Bob.

NOVEMBER 20, 2012 5:30 P.M.

Mark wrote:

@ bert

Do you ever tire of being an asshat under any of your aliases?

NOVEMBER 20, 2012 5:31 P.M.

w8user wrote:

The problem is not every store has the best win8 PC/Tablets and if a store keeps not so good windows8 machine it will not sell. I see some of the shops selling old win7 machines with win8 on it. There are some very good w8 devices which are unparalleled but not every store is keeping them.

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Tech Trader Daily is a blog on technology investing written by Barron’s veteran Tiernan Ray. The blog provides news, analysis and original reporting on events important to investors in software, hardware, the Internet, telecommunications and related fields. Comments and tips can be sent to: techtraderdaily@barrons.com.